Underestimating the Power of the Earth

As we assess the immensity of the earthquake on Friday and the ongoing damage from the tsunami, one result beyond the deep sadness and grief at the devastation is awe. Now Japan is reported to be 13 feet closer to the Americas. I didn’t realize such major earthquakes can shorten our day by microseconds and affect the wobble of the earth on its axis. But more critical, in terms of the nuclear plants it seems, was underestimating the magnitude of a quake that was possible.

Because the last 300 years hadn’t had many quakes in the 8 range, engineers were lulled into believing they could build a seawall to protect the power plants that was much lower than would have been needed to stop this most recent tsunami – if even one could have been built at all. These plants are designed to withstand multiple failures – but the earthquake and tsunami set up too many failures for their systems to handle. Safeguard systems can only do so much when too many failures overwhelm the backup systems.

This is a very sobering moment for all those advocating the use of nuclear energy. Yes, engineers are pretty good at planning for expected failure modes. But the failure modes and cascades of failures they’ve never thought of or don’t believe are possible are the ones that will cause the kind of catastrophe unfolding now in Japan. And what corporation is willing to spend the outrageous amount of money to plan for an even that may happen 500 years from now. We can barely design a clock that will last 10,000 years.

Are we willing to plan for a meteor hitting a nuclear power plant? Not likely but what a mess it would make if one did. If we planned in the million year time frame, it may be reasonably likely that a meteor may hit one of the plants someplace in the world. What about the 10 million year time frame? Of course, what will we have evolved into by then?

More likely is a terrorist detonating an atom bomb next to a plant. And they don’t need to get all that close to make a really big mess.

The West Coast of the United States is a similar disaster waiting to happen. What if the San Andreas fault slips enough to create a 20 foot tsunami outside San Francisco? Can we realistically prepare for this given its probability but yet infrequency? Thank the foresight of engineers in Tokyo to design the buildings there as well as they did. But all those designs are limited too in what they can withstand. Those nuclear power plants had many safeguards built into them … just not enough.

In moments like these, we begin to confront the profound limitations of humanity and stand in awe of forces far greater than we can manage.

4 Responses

Great post. You addressed a number of the issues that concern me regarding nuclear power as a clean energy source. Fact is, as you allude to, NO STRUCTURE EVER BUILT BY MAN has lasted even a minute fraction of the half-life of the dangerous radioactive waste that nuclear power generates. And I’m not aware of any seismologist that can predict with certainty that seismic tectonic shifts or major shifts in groundwater levels over the next couple of centuries couldn’t compromise nuclear waste storage facilities. What I DO know is that a major destruction, much less disruption, at a wind farm or solar panel farm would NOT require massive evacuations or the danger of lethal radiation for centuries, much less years. We vastly underestimate how fragile our environment is and the level of damage we are capable of inflicting. I find it sad that we don’t seem to see this despite the increasing frequency of reminders (the Gulf Oil spill, acid rain emissions, etc.). Most folks aren’t even aware that over the last century or so, right up to now, we are seeing a mass extinction in terms of the shear volume of animal species that have gone extinct, that hasn’t been experienced on this planet in many millions of years. If we did acknowledge these things, maybe we’d make more of an effort to step up as stewards of our planet use our advanced technological expertise to develop and implement, in a big way, clean and SAFE alternatives to fossil fuels, as opposed to quick fixes, which in the whole scheme of things is exactly what nuclear power, in the absence of fail-safe waste storage (and melt-down proof!) alternatives is. Instead, we seem to care more about Facebook and mobile electronic devices. Pretty sad I think.

Michael, you raise valid points, but leave out the entire issue of economics. There is no question that wind, solar, geothermal, and other alternative technologies are cleaner and less dangerous than fossil fuels and nuclear power. The problem is they are not economic. If we strip away the tax benefits and outright subsidies, the fact of the matter is that these technologies are about 3 times that of coal and natural gas.

If America were to unilaterally or even in conjunction with the European union to decide to go strictly renewable resources, we would be granting economic (and eventually military) dominance to China and/or India. Does anyone really want to live a world where China calls the shots? Will we accept as much as a 20% decline in our standard of living to achieve safe energy? Considering recent economic decisions in the West, I think not.

The only possible saving grace may be a potential for the rapid rise in fossil fuel prices in the near future. What it will come down to is what happens in the world of technology. If we can find more efficient ways to store solar and wind power, your position will become more viable. If however, we learn to extract oil from oil sands and shale deposits more efficiently, and we find a few more domestic Marcellus shale natural gas deposits, renewables will remain at a severe disadvantage.

Phana. I agree that economic considerations are, of course, important. With respect to the higher risk sources of energy, the unfortunate fact is that the cost of environmental degradation or mishaps is borne after it occurs. If it was factored into the cost up front, the disparity between fossil and non-fossil fuels would be a whole lot less. Pay now or pay later. As for economics, nuclear simply is not competitive and no new facilities are possible without massive government subsidies. That we continue to subsidize an oil industry that is already generating huge profits is absolutely insane, but hey, they got the lobbying game nailed! Can’t wait for Exxon to report their 1st quarter results.

As for comparisons with China, on a per capital basis, we consume a multiple of the fossil fuels they consume. At the same time, they are much more aggressive than we are in terms of investing in alternative energy. As for our standard of living declining relative to China, the best metric (definitive metric really) for that is our trade deficit. The reason they are cleaning our clock economically is that they have rapidly become a nation of producers. We, on the other hand, have gone in the opposite direction. All one has to do is look at the “Made in China” labels on a huge portion of what we consume. The consequences you refer to are not a future risk, they are already happening.

America’s economic strength was built on its technological superiority. Unfortunately, we ceded that position and future generations will pay the price. Had we been forward looking and gone full speed ahead in the area of alternative energy production a decade or two ago, what would have happened? We would have significantly reduced, if not eliminated, our dependence on foreign oil. That translates into a smaller trade deficit by the way. And we would likely have a created significant employment in those industries. From a technology perspective, what are we the leader in anymore (except maybe for defense)? Why did we lose that forward looking view and simply become reactive? That mode has put us on the course we’re on now, as our wealth moves to other countries.

The only reason our standard of living (i.e., economic standing) hasn’t been blown out of the water already is that our currency is still looked to as “the reserve currency” by the rest of the world. Heck, if China decided to dump their holdings of our Treasury bonds, you’d see the dollar get killed and our interest rates go through the roof. A 20% reduction in our standard of living would be an understatement. Fortunately, it’s not in their best interests for that to happen. But we better wake up soon!!!

Yes, economics are important. I think if we took a serious long-term look at the economics of trade imbalances and our fall as the world’s technology leader, we would have already made the investments necessary to move away from fossil fuels and take the lead with renewables, among other advanced technologies. The answer to our problem is not to consume our way out of it. The events of the last three years or so should have taught us that.

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